


Simple

by agender_alien



Category: OFF (Game)
Genre: ??idk im tired, Angst, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, this isnt really a fic more of like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 15:00:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7537315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agender_alien/pseuds/agender_alien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t think you have the emotions most people have. This should be simple, but it's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simple

You don’t think you have the emotions most people have. You know you have anger and frustration, but there has to be something else. You know it’s there, but it’s too far away to grasp. Feelings should be easy. You’ve always been good at learning. This should be simple, but it’s not.

You hope some Elsens managed to escape the places you purified. They’re all too nervous to breath, though, so you doubt it. The idea of genocide makes you uneasy, but it’s all you’ve been doing recently, even though you’re not really the one in control. 

When you came back to the recently purified Zone 2, you didn’t really expect to hear whispers clawing at you and every move you made. Your add-ons hum nervously, and you can’t help but scratch at your arms with white knuckles. The player was guiding you to the tower where you killed the bird, and you felt a cold weight in your stomach. Even from the base of the structure, you can hear pained yowling, and you clench your bat tightly in your fist. 

Regret isn’t something you often feel, but the stale taste in your mouth and the churning under your skin is an indicator of it. It wasn’t your fault that Valerie was dead. You had to kill Japhet, but the cat was already long dead. Right? Japhet was the parasite. You had to purify this zone, you had to, you had to- 

You don’t want this feeling. 

Talk to the merchant again. He’s selling nothing but luck tickets and meat. Some defensive equipment, but nothing better than what you have right now. You spend a few minutes wondering what’s under his mask, if he even had a face programmed for himself, while he rambles about a certain item. He’s selling it for a ridiculous price, and you decline with your own voice even as the player is smashing cancel. He says something in Spanish you barely understand, you don’t even speak English that well, how does he expect you to know yet another language? 

You’re a little reckless in fights. Purifying the meat river monsters, you fall and drown more than a few times. The next time you come back to the merchant, he looks pitiful even with his mask on. You want to wipe that off his face with your bat. You know the strings of the player will stop you, and the coding of the game won’t ever allow you to challenge him, but. It’s nice to imagine what human blood would look like on your white uniform.

The recklessness builds up, and you’re left bleeding and gritting your teeth on the floor of Zone 2. Your vision is hazy, and as soon as you try to stand up, your head fills with static and it flows over like water from a bowl. You fall down, crashing your chin onto the concrete floor, tearing off a chunk of the inside of your chin. Your add-ons buzz worriedly around you, but you’re barely able to register their existence. Usually when you die, it’s a lot quicker this. 

You lie there for a while, just trying to breath, unable to reach your inventory for some reason. Your player probably thought you died and left to do something more important. Great. So you just have to wait for however long, or die.

You’re not sure how much time has passed since you decided to wait, but now you aren't waiting, because there are arms carrying you somewhere and honestly you don’t care where you’re going. You attempt to groan, but your breath catches in your throat and you start coughing, bumping your head against legs, gasping for air.   
“Easy there, my friend.” You’d growl, but you’re busy, so instead you just aggressively hack. 

He takes you to an abandoned house and drops you on some crates without much care in his movements. With your closed eyes, all you can hear is him rummaging around in his mountain of a backpack and the quiet footfalls every few seconds. There’s blood all over you, most of it your own. 

“You did quite a number on yourself, Batter. Shall I patch you up?” It was less of a question than it was a statement. He’s already pulling up your shirt to reveal the less than stellar injuries you’d acquired on your torso. The merchant whistles, delighted, and you scowl. 

He hums as he slaps some cold gel onto your cuts and you cringe when he stitches together the gash by your hip, sniffing every time he pulls the needle through. You dig your fingernails into your palm. He wraps gauze around your hands and you can feel him smiling even though he says that you probably would have died. 

You can’t figure him out. 

The Judge watches you from window sills and under fences. You’re not sure what he’s looking for, other than some head scratches. Most of the time, he just sits are watches you kill people. You wipe off your bat on your white pants. It’s really a liberty to call them white anymore, when they’re so stained rust and black. There’s an odd sense you get when you look into his eyes, like something’s crawling up your back. You take a deep breath and tell yourself to stop thinking about him. 

Zacharie has become your doctor of sorts. If you have something that needs stitching, you go to him, and if you fake being sick enough, he’ll come to you. You hope he doesn’t know that you can heal whenever you want, and a bunch of pixels like you can’t get sick. Knowing him, he does, and comes to you regardless. You can’t exactly pin down Zacharie’s character; you know he is the merchant, but the character beyond purpose is what confuses you. He is kind, but cruel in his own ways. He’ll watch you have teeth beaten out of you without flinching, but puts you back together on his own accord without you having to ask. 

Looking at Zacharie’s face after you kill Sugar is one of the worst things you’ve ever had to do. You reload the file without the player and ignore the strings pulling you to Zone 0, gritting your teeth and digging your nails into your arm. Not knowing how to feel is one thing, but seeing how people react to your actions is an entirely different field. It’s some way of measuring the pain you’ve inflicted without having to feel all of it. 

You kill your wife, and then you kill your child, and then you kill the other half of a set. There’s blood everywhere and none of it is yours. There’s something in your chest that wants out, and it feels like there’s forks in your throat, and you hate this so much, you hate it.

Pulling the switch is simple.

**Author's Note:**

> its 2016 and my gay ass is still clinging to this rpg pull the trigger piglet


End file.
